Chance Better than Choice -- Academic

Public school choice has come to Japan in recent years and, surprise surprise, some public schools have turned out to be more popular than others.

Public school choice, just to put things in perspective, is not exactly a radical reform. To say that it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic is too generous. It's more like changing the fabric on the deck chairs and leaving them right where they are.

Nevertheless, it is shaking up some Japanese education academics. Professor Isao Kurosaki recently opined in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that sometimes, heaven forbid, some maniacal parents are influenced in their choice of school by--get ready--its reputation. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you. Cats and dogs sleeping together, fire from the sky, and all that.

What's particularly funny about this objection to parental choice in education, whether it takes place within the confines of a government monopoly or in a true education market, is the alternative. After all, the alternative to parental choice is not school assignment by all-wise and benevolent philosopher kings, but rather it is assignment based, utterly irrelevantly, on where students live.

So what these anti-choice hair-pullers are saying is that random chance is better than parental choice: If you could choose from among a variety of schools for your child, critics think you'd find no better fit than if you threw darts, blindfolded, at a list of your educational options.

Are you that backward? I don't think you're that backward, but they apparently do.

Keep that in mind on your way to the voting booth next time a real market education reform comes along.